Recent reviews by LadyTopHat

This is a great point & click adventure game set in the 1930's. The story flips between the real world, where you as Norah, go in search of your missing husband, and a dream-like underwater world. Here Norah tries to work out the cause of her mysterious 'illness'.

Walking around in a world that moves with you is a nice additional touch, almost providing an 'open-world' experience rather than the typical static screen background of many P&Cs. Interaction icons are also small, making it easy to miss things. I find this to be a good feature as it encourages exploration.

The voice acting is of a high standard and the 'colouring-book' graphics make for a pleasant experience.

The puzzles are interesting, but not particularly challenging. (About the same as Room, but not as hard as Myst.) This is not a bad thing, as it enables the game to focus on the story, which is truly its strong point.

Most enjoyable! Definitely recommend.

Pros:
Slow pace, plentiful town objectives, learning how to use all the various machines properly is somewhat challenging. Soundtrack is a bit repetitive but still nice.

Cons:
Terrible voice acting, some controls missing (e.g. putting hay in the cow shed), NPC fidelity is awful, story is twee (goal is to find a wife who can milk the cows and do your cooking).

Overall:
Despite the cons, I still recommend this game as it is very relaxing. Driving around town at 25 km/hr in a tractor is strangely soothing. The delayed gratification of waiting 60 days to make your harvest and then selling it all is also deeply satisfying.

Great game! If you like puzzle games in general this game won't disappoint. If you like mechanical and technical puzzles in particular, this is most definitely the game for you.
Building on from Room 1, this game features more rooms and more features. As a physicist, I particularly enjoyed electrocuting things in the lab! Most puzzles were logical and not too difficult, however, if you do get stuck there's a handy hint feature to get you back on track.
Letters left around the place drip-feed information about a sinister back-story whilst cutscenes between rooms give depth to the whole experience. The game culminates in a neat conclusion with one final end scene.

Space Engineers is a sandbox creation game with infinite mods and infinite possibilities.

The game is taxing for your hardware - I have a GTX970 and it sometimes struggles to populate. There are a plethora of community mods which add lots to the game but these can easily cause clashes with the main game generating weird and wonderful bugs.

Starting in the vanilla game you have the option of playing in survival or creative mode. Survival mode can be with enemy NPCs or you can join a server and have other players as your enemy. Many players switch often between creative and survival depending on the stage of play.

The soundtrack is great as are the graphics.

The amount of blocks can be overwhelming at first, and making your first properly connected thingamajig that actually works can take quite a while so I recommend being prepared to invest lots of time in the game, especially at the beginning.

Basically, if you like Minecraft and you're older than 13 years old, you'll love this game.

Nice little hidden-object puzzle game. Interesting interlude with a guy talking to his doctor, explaining the puzzles that you're playing.

I completed the free demo in 25 minutes and am definitely interested enough to buy the full game. Currently costs A$14.50 so I'll wait for a sale to buy it at a reduced price.

Soundtrack is cutesy and the artwork is fun. Reminds me of games I played as a kid, which is nice. Good variation on the typical HOG from Artifex Mundi.

As a fan of FMV games from the 90's I'm delighted to see this revisit of the genre.

Highly recommend this game, even if you've never played FMV before as it's a nice variation on the standard point and click mechanic.

The clue interface is very well made - the challenge is in filtering through the wealth of information you accumulate towards the end of the game.

To the developers: please make another one, perhaps consider having TWO investigators (one male, one female) and it would be fantastic to know why on earth we had to solve the mystery between the hours of 5pm and midnight. Thanks!

[+337 hours gameplay from beta & pre-steam versions]

Two factions, the dominion and the exiles are at war. Choosing one side or the other you follow a fascinating world story which slowly reveals information about the long forgotten race, The Elden. Gameplay involves levelling, level 50 exclusive gameplay, raids, PvP, adventures and dungeons (offered at two levels; normal and veteran)

Graphics are crisp and vivid. The UI is pleasing and supports a multitude of add-ons. The music score by Jeff Kurtenacker is simply stunning - I actually listen to the Farside theme whilst offline.

This MMORPG was made by the same team behind World of Warcraft. Often this shows, in the funky world graphics and levelling tasks, but this is altogether a far more polished game. The largest difference with WoW is housing. With the arrival on Steam, the housing plots became bigger and the new expansion 'Homecoming' has 100's more objects and colours to choose from. Another difference is the humour - I get the feeling WoW takes itself a bit too seriously. Meanwhile, from lore entries, to sarcastic holographic rez points and sexy level up messages, Wildstar always seems to be poking fun or just being tongue in cheek. Despite all those hours of gameplay I'm still laughing out loud whilst playing. Finally, in WoW, it is difficult to play with others if you happen to have accounts in different regions. I joined the US west coast server, as did my husband (who is level-capped in Europe), only to find that we couldn't play together in the free edition. We would both have to buy the game in order to play together. No such barriers from Wildstar - and realm switching is free too!

With six races in each faction to choose from, six classes and four paths, this game offers plenty of versatility and replayability. Throw in crafting, resource gathering, rune modifications and an extensive wardrobe and we have a game that simply has it all.

This is a classic point and click adventure from the makers of Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. Thimbleweed is the name of a rundown town and gameplay starts with a murder. There are five playable characters, all collecting and using various items to solve the murder.
You can choose to play in casual or hard mode where hard mode extends the puzzles and increases the number of inventory items.

Music - Good
Graphics - Very high quality pixel graphics
Cost - May want to wait for a Steam sale
Top Hats - None. The Sherrif-erino wears a sherrif's hat, Ransome the clown has a clown-fro, and there's a pirate hat.

Another point and click game starring Nina Kalenkov, in her second adventure in the Secret Files series.

The story builds on what took place in the first game, and is just as good. The puzzles are also challenging but not impossible. This time we are treated to not only playing as Max again, but also as Sam Peters (who gets her own game in 2013). As with 'Secret Files: Tunguska', the characters pass objects to each other to solve puzzles.

Cutscenes and music score add immersion to the experience. Very happy to report that the sexist dialogues (from Tunguska) are gone and replaced by 'normal' chiding between the sexes. Voice-acting has also improved, but still room for improvement. Graphics improved from the previous game, but still only 16:10.

Price is just right, definitely recommend this game.

Excellent point and click game where we meet Nina Kalenkov, star of her first of three adventures in the Secret Files series.

Story is good, puzzles are mostly manageable with some tricky ones thrown in for good measure. Gameplay switches briefly to Max, Nina's love interest, and there's a lovely segment where you play as both characters passing objects to the other to solve the puzzles.

Cutscenes and music score add immersion to the experience. One or two cringey, out-dated sexist dialogues but bearable. Voice-acting is not the best. Graphics remain at 4:3 throughout the game.

Price is just right, definitely recommend this game.